The Tides of Change....

Wow, so where to begin so that this doesn’t turn into a dissertation! Okay, long story, short….turns out that most of what I had heard about my son from my last post was false. He’s actually doing pretty good and I’ve seen a lot of progress in his behavior and choices. He came to me and asked for help for the first time in his life. He said he needed to be with family and wanted help before he did something really stupid. You would have to know him and more of our history to really understand how huge this is for him. He has NEVER asked for help. He has a lot of pride, believe it or not. And he’s always been hell bent on doing it his way. So, I gave him that hand up and it turned out good!! He’s doing well and he’s thinking a little differently. He has been asking for my opinion on what he should do about this or that….again, this is another first.

Here’s where things went to hell in a hand basket…. About a month ago my niece, who is in her freshman year of college got caught smoking pot with a group of kids (stupid kids obviously) on campus. Well, there’s a zero tolerance so she was evicted from her housing and cannot return. She’s not a bad kid; she’s just a stupid one! She doesn’t “do drugs,” but she did follow the pack on this occasion. She asked if she could stay with us (we live closest to the college she’s attending) just until the end of the semester at which point her mother told her she was coming home and could go to Jr. College for a semester or two. So, after some serious thought, my husband and I said okay, with some reservations and very clear rules. The biggest concern here is that my niece and my daughter are just 14 months apart in age, they’re very close and they’ve had a tendency to find trouble together. So my husband made it crystal clear to both girls that one tiny screw up and H (my niece) would be out and he didn’t care where she went and he told my daughter she would wish she could go with her. About a week ago I found out that my niece is bulimic and she’s been cutting….great!! Just what I need, another kid with issues!! Is it in the water? Am I magnet for this shit?? I talked to her about this, told her I had to talk to her dad (my brother) and she needed help because this couldn’t continue.

Then, as if things couldn’t go any further south….it turns out that my daughter, almost 17 and my niece, 18, went to a rave last Friday night. Over the course of the night (Friday) my daughter took 5 tabs of ecstasy and then Saturday morning she took 32 Triple C…..I’m just sick. I realize that kids typically don’t really learn what you would hope just from watching a sibling or close friend that has really screwed up, but I still have a hard time getting my head around that.

So, my niece is out, headed back home where she’ll have to commute to the university she attends until the end of the semester and her mother can get her into therapy. My daughter is on strict lock down for the next several months. It’s been a living hell around here for days and I’m exhausted. I have found a psychiatrist and am close to finding a psychologist for her. I intend to get her on antidepressants and into counseling. I’m not a doctor by any means, but I really think her issues come from a totally different place than my sons. My daughter has a big weight problem which has her self-image in the gutter along with her self esteem and self worth add to this that she has taken a back seat to her brother and his issues far to many times - you deal with the child in crises at the time, don't you? I've had my own resentment wih my son on the backseat issue, but that's another story....I think I did the best I could do at the time with what was happening.  The possitive here is that she is actually looking forward to going to counseling; although, a little aprehensive about talking to someone she doesn’t know about all that’s going on with her.

Currently my anxieties are in over drive because my daughter thinks that my husband, her step father has no rights over her, needs to stay out of this, not speak to her and basically stay out of her way!! Well, this just isn’t going to happen. My husband tried to talk to her about her behavior (her mouth at this point) Friday morning and she gave him the “you’re not my father” speech, got a little mouthy, started crying, got up and walked out of the house with him hot on her trail!! Of course this just made everything worse.  But he wrote her, what I thought was a very good, long note about what his expectations of her are, how he isn't going to sit back and watch more and more stress be heaped opon me and that he loves her and wants to help. 

Thursday and Friday where a living hell around here…my husband wasn’t here and my daughter was full of anger and rage to the point that I was on the verge of calling the police and having her transported to the hospital. She was so full of hate and so erratic…she has always been a little on the mouthy side, but NEVER like she was these two days. I think it had to do with how the MDMA works by flooding the brain with serotonin, leaving you depleted until the brain heals and begins producing serotonin normally again. Saturday morning she came into the nursery and stood there; I looked up and she started crying and said she was sorry and didn’t know what was wrong with her and that it scared her. Heavy sigh…..

My husband loves my daughter and cares about her well being, of course she will never see this or least not for years to come when she’s hopefully mature enough to look back and see it. At any rate, my husband is not the type of man to cow tail to a teenager and he certainly will not have her calling any of the shots, nor should we!! My husband has been hunting since Friday and will be back sometime tomorrow. Of course my daughter is adamant that her step dad better not say a word to her or she’ll walk out again and she’ll go to her dads if her step dad says one word to her about anything. Fine, she can go to her dads, I’m not threatened by this. What she doesn’t realize is that I seriously doubt her father would take her because while he loves his kids he will not upset his home or wife by allowing either of our kids to live there when there is any sign of trouble…..geezzz!!! I have a feeling things around here aren’t going to be pretty….not pretty at all!!!

Well I tried not to let this post evolve into a novel, for all the good it did! :)

The Demons Are Alive and Well....

I can’t think, I can’t focus, I can’t concentrate on anything but him and will he live to see tomorrow….I can’t breathe.  He’s back out, using.  What the hell drives his demons? As much as I understand addiction, I will still never fully get it. He doesn’t know that I know…yet. Won’t really matter or make any difference when he knows, he’ll just deny it and fabricate some well spun story which he’s a master at.  So, my plan at this point is to try to have one brief conversation with him to let him know that this time I do not want to see him or hear from him until he is ready for help in the form of serious recovery, ready to commit at any cost, ready for the hardest work he’ll ever do in his life.  I have turned him over to God.  I can’t fix any of this for him as much as I wish I could, I know that.  I don’t know what else to do…..  He’s in deep, playing a very dangerous game with high stakes and I just pray he doesn’t end up dead.  With any luck his outstanding warrants will catch up with him soon and he’ll end up in jail, the best place for him at this very moment.  This sucks, what else can I say?

Remaining Cautiously Optimistic….

This past weekend was my ex-husband and the father of my children’s 50th birthday. My daughter was at her dad’s for the weekend and C and my grandbaby were going over on Saturday for a cookout to celebrate the ex’s birthday. Jake and C have been apart for a couple of weeks now. In the past whenever they have split up, Jake would take off and commence the beginning of his life spiraling out of control one more time….just the way it’s always gone. So, I was really surprised when my daughter told me that Jake came along with C and their son, to his dad’s for the cookout. Even more surprising was when my daughter told me that it had been Jake’s idea and he asked C if he could go with her and their baby. I guess you’d really have to know Jake and understand how he works to really get why this is sooooo out of character for him. It had been more than a week since I’ve had any communication with Jacob, so I decided to send him a text this morning just to say I love you and ask if he was doing okay and was he still staying at friends. He replied saying that he was back with C and they are trying to work things out. I’m happy they are trying to work on things….I’m not sure if things will work out for them or not, but I’m happy they’re at least trying…again. They’ve been together for more than 2 years (with periods of seperation) and I believe they really love each other but I worry about them because they each have their own issues, they’re so young and neither has the maturity to really understand and put into practice what it takes to have a healthy, loving relationship, not to mention that neither really know or understand what a healthy relationship is, in part, due to their young ages, lack of experience and the fact that both came from divorced homes….they are equally hard headed and stubborn. But, I have decided not to worry overly much about their relationship or read too much into this different course of action that I’m seeing with Jacob this time. Instead, I will breathe a sigh of relief for the moment, continue praying and remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful….I’ve turned it over to God.